Capacity of renewable energy power plants to be increased
Capacity of renewable energy power plants to be increased
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government will soon embark on a project to increase the
maximum capacity of renewable energy power plants that can sell
electricity to state power firm PLN without tender to 10
megawatts (MW) from the current 1 MW, an official says.
The small-scale power plants must use renewable energy, such
as geothermal, biomass, hydropower or solar energy, the Ministry
of Energy and Mineral Resources' Director General of Electricity
and Energy Supply Yogo Pratomo said on Wednesday.
"PLN must purchase the generated electricity at 80 percent of
the respective regional power cost, if it is connected to a
medium voltage grid," he said.
A ministerial decree issued in 2002 stipulates that only power
plants of up to 1 MW can be eligible for such special treatment.
Pricing negotiations with PLN are usually lengthy and can take
years to complete.
"We will finalize the new ministerial decree in one month,"
said Yogo, adding that the revision had been requested by several
investors.
Indonesia is striving to increase its use of alternative
energy to reduce its reliance on increasingly expensive and
scarce oil.
Increased use of renewable energy, however, has been slow to
come about as the state-of-art technology involved makes it more
expensive than energy produced by conventional hydrocarbon-fired
plants.
Despite the country's massive potential, power plants using
renewable energy sources contribute only a small portion of the
country's total installed power capacity of about 25,000 MW. The
installed capacity of mini and micro hydropower plants is only 54
MW, while those utilizing geothermal and biomass energy have
installed capacity of 800 MW and 302 MW respectively.
Located on the "ring of fire" volcano belt, Indonesia is
estimated to hold about 40 percent of the world's geothermal
reserves, equivalent to a total of 27,140 MW of power.
The government aims to raise the use of new and renewable
energy sources in power generation from 0.2 percent currently to
4 percent by 2020.